Banner blindness

Today I came across an relatively old study (2007) but stil very relevant. It shows why Search Engine Marketing is not too effective and click through ratios are usually very low.

The most prominent result from the new eyetracking studies is not actually new. We simply confirmed for the umpteenth time that banner blindness is real. Users almost never look at anything that looks like an advertisement, whether or not it's actually an ad. (Indeed, banner blindness is moving beyond the online realm, for example into ballot design.)

On hundreds of pages, users didn't fixate on ads. The following heatmaps show three examples that cover a range of user engagement with the content: quick scanning, partial reading, and thorough reading. Scanning is more common than reading, but users will sometimes dig into an article if they really care about it.



Heatmaps from eyetracking studies: The areas where users looked the most are colored red; the yellow areas indicate fewer views, followed by the least-viewed blue areas. Gray areas didn't attract any fixations. Green boxes were drawn on top of the images after the study to highlight the advertisements.

The following video clips show a gaze replay of one user's eye movements while looking for advice on how to invest for retirement. (The moving blue dot shows where the user is looking.) The page contains an ad for retirement accounts at Fidelity Investments, a site that offers good advice on the target topic and might therefore help users who click the ad.

Video advertising-fixation-gaze-replay  (.wmv)
Regular-speed gaze replay (19-second video, Windows Media format, 0.6 MB)

Video advertising-fixation-slowmotion (.wmv)
•Slow-motion gaze replay (1-minute video, Windows Media format, 2.2 MB)

As the replay shows, the user did fixate once within the ad, but at that moment, the ad is obscured by a pull-down menu. In reality, the user couldn't see the message; the fixation was clearly a mistake that occurred while she was trying to reacquire the menu after briefly looking away from the screen. All of this occurs so quickly that you probably need to review the slow-motion replay to follow the action. (This is typical for eyetracking: the eye moves so fast that our best insights come from watching slow-motion replays.)

Smart advertisers should therefore be looking at other ways to engage the consumer.

Original post: Banner Blindness old and new findings

BannerBlindness.pdf

A new target group "Online mums"

As the internet becomes more a standard household facility like a telephone or a washing machine mothers can be reached online. This nice infographic gives some details of how mothers in the UK spend their time on line. 

Organising crowdsourcing: What motivates online volunteers ?

Companies increasingly outsource activities to volunteers that they approach via an open call on the internet. The phenomenon is called ‘crowdsourcing’. In general rewards are absent, in some cases the best contributions are rewarded by means of recognition on the website or by monetary prizes. To make effective use of crowdsourcing, it is important to understand what motivates these online volunteers and what is the influence of rewards.

Irma Borst from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam has investigated in her phd thesis the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of volunteers on the decision to contribute and on the quantity, usefulness and novelty of contributions that these online volunteers provide. Three crowdsourcing communities were investigated http://www.tweakers.net/, http://www.nufoto.nl/, http://www.greenchallenge.info/

A crowdsourcing classification is proposed in which crowdsourcing initiatives are classified on the basis of their reward systems:
A) Gift sourcing (no or small financial rewards);
B) Expert sourcing (large financial rewards)
C) Game Sourcing (extreme money rewards).

The proposed classification of rewards systems will help organizers of online communities to set up effective reward systems.

Phd thesis Irma Borst

Generations online 2010 (USA)

An interesting research shows that certain key internet activities are becoming more uniformly popular across all age groups. These include:

• Email
• Search engine use
• Seeking health information
• Getting news
• Buying products
• Making travel reservations or purchases
• Doing online banking
• Looking for religious information
• Rating products, services, or people
• Making online charitable donations
• Downloading podcasts

The use of internet is becoming just as standard as for example using a telephone.  The info graphic below shows nicely how internet activities are divided among the generations.

  

Source: The report on internet use across generations

Ten Words That Build Trust

Although this finding depends very much on which culture you come from, it still makes an interesting read. Would there be a possible quick fix by just adding a few strategic sentences at the end of a direct mail letter?

 Do you think one short sentence at the end of your ad could cause a major increase in the level of trust customers place in you? Believe it or not, it’s true. Researchers found that placing the following statement at the end of an ad for a auto service firm caused their trust scores to jump as much as 33%!

“You can trust us to do the job for you.”

Seems simple, eh? Almost something that doesn’t even need to be said, since the implication in any ad or relationship is that if you give the firm a job to do, they will do it. There’s no claim of doing it right, doing it better, doing it quickly, or even doing it with a smile.

Nevertheless, that phrase caused people to rate the firm in the ad higher in every category:

Fair Price – Up 7%
Caring – Up 11%
Fair Treatment – Up 20%
Quality – Up 30%
Competency – Up 33%

It’s quite surprising that as nebulous as the “trust us” statement was, it produced major increases in very specific areas of performance.
So, if you want your customers to trust you, remind them that they CAN trust you. Try it. It will work. You can trust me.

Image via Shutterstock. Original study: On the Potential for Advertising to Facilitate Trust in the Advertised Brand by Fuan Li and Paul W. Miniard. http://mesharpe.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,8,12;journal,16,31;linkingpublicationresults,1:110658,1 Summarized data can be found in About Face by Dan Hill.

Source:
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/ten-words.htm

Facebook Revenue Is Not Growing Like Google's Did

Facebook is on track to generate $2 billion in sales this year, a nice milestone for the social networking king.
In part because of this news, investors are piling into Facebook stock on the private markets at a $56 billion valuation. The assumption is that Facebook is the next Google, a money printing machine that might eventually even be BIGGER than Google.
While it's possible that scenario will play out, it's worth looking at how Facebook's revenue growth compares to other online-advertising-driven companies, such as Google and Yahoo.
It's true that Facebook did not emphasize revenue early in its early years, but neither did Google.
And as you can see below, when Google did put the pedal down, its revenue grew much more rapidly than Facebook's.
So those who are counting on Facebook becoming a bigger business than Google had better hope it has another ace up its sleeve.

Google vs facebook vs yahoo revenue growth


Read more:
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-google-facebook-yahoo-revenue-2010-12#ixzz18mJKp1o6

The Marmite effect

People are creatures of habit. A new study by economists from the universities of Tilburg and Chicago* tracks the consumption patterns of American households over two years and finds striking evidence that such loyalty is widespread, deep and long-lasting. People are extremely loyal to the brands of their youth. The implications of this finding could be that more advertising does not help in switching people to other brands. And the benefits of being the first brand into a market could last longer than might be assumed.^

Markets that cater to migrants, whether from a different part of the country or from far-flung corners of the globe, are not just great for gourmands. They are also testament to the fact that people often retain very strong preferences for the kinds of food they grew up eating. Just ask the expatriate Britons who flock to “Tea and Sympathy” in New York’s Greenwich Village for pots of Marmite, a yeast-based spread whose delights baffle other nationalities (and many of their own compatriots). Such nostalgia is the most obvious example of the influence exerted by loyalty to the brands of your youth.

The new study finds a clever way to test this idea. The researchers had data on the purchases of 238 kinds of packaged goods by 38,000 American families between 2006 and 2008. For each of the goods in question, the data allowed them to calculate the share of the most-preferred brand as a fraction of the purchases of the two leading brands. Different regions showed a lot of variation: there were clear local patterns in consumption, although the same brands were available everywhere.

But 16% of people studied were migrants: they had grown up in one state and moved to another. They had the same options, in terms of what was on offer and at what price, as everyone else in their adopted home. But although they consumed more local favourites than someone in their native state would have, they bought fewer local hits (and more of the favourites from back home) than a longtime resident. And this gap between the purchases of migrants and that of the locally born was quite stubborn: although it faded the longer a person lived in their new state, it still took 20 years to halve in magnitude. Even 50 years on, it was still large enough to show up in the data.

Past research has shown that people are often willing to pay much more for a favoured brand than for seemingly identical alternatives. It is not always obvious why. For instance, people routinely express a strong liking for a brand that they are unable to tell apart from rivals in blind tests. And many studies have found that advertising alone cannot explain the strength of brand loyalty. So it seems plausible that a person’s past may play a role. Someone who spent their formative years in The Netherlands, may always hanker for Calve Pindakaas, a local Dutch peanut butter.

Article economist

Top 5 Enterprises Using Social Media

You can always learn from the best examples.
5 companies that use social media

1)The National Wildlife Federation

2)Ann Taylor

3)The Muppets studio



4)Whole Foods


5)Staples




5 top enterprises in social media

10 Tips for Corporate Blogging

In a world where small businesses with corporate blogs receive 55 percent more traffic than small businesses that don’t blog, companies should be taking note on how to improve their blogs, attract more readers and get more results.
But still, a lot of companies with corporate blogs seem to be bogged down in uniformed policies and simply aren’t thinking outside the box. Afraid to take on colorful personalities or step a bit outside of their company’s happenings, many corporate blogs employ an official tone announcing the play-by-play updates of company news. This is just one mistake that businesses are making in the blogging world.
There is a laundry list of issues that need to be addressed when it comes to improving corporate blogs, but here we’ve narrowed down the key elements that companies should focus on. Here are 10 tips for corporate bloggers hoping to make a positive splash in their communities.

10 corporate blogging tips
 
Tip nr 7. Get Social

Who will become the dominant social profile Facebook or google ?

A big battle is going on.


Facebook and Google are waging a bitter battle over data portability and the control of your identity on the web. Unfortunately, it’s a battle in which nobody will emerge as the victor, certainly not the millions of users who are now caught in the crossfire.

Last week, Google changed its terms of service so that anybody utilizing its Contacts API is required to reciprocate by exporting its contacts back to Google. In other words, if a company or social network wants to let users import their Gmail friends so their users can find their friends, then it has to allow for the same type of importing.
For most companies, this isn’t a problem, but there is a big company that doesn’t offer reciprocity: Facebook. The social network doesn’t allow Google users to import their Facebook contacts for products like Gmail, Buzz or Orkut. Thus, Google blocked Facebook’s access to its Contacts API.
That’s when things got interesting. Following Google’s decision to deny Facebook API access, Facebook decided to circumvent Google by giving users an easy option to download their Gmail contacts and then upload them to Facebook. As AOL’s TechCrunch notes, it’s essentially Facebook’s way of telling the search giant to go to hell.

Google and Facebook’s battle isn’t simply about any one company blocking access to data or acting juvenile; the stakes are nothing less than complete dominance of the web. As we’ve noted in the past, Google and Facebook are locked in a heated battle to become your default social profile. Whichever company controls identity on the web, controls the web.

Currently Facebook and Google dominate third-party sign-in options on the web, but Facebook’s growth as an identity platform has been ascending; more than 10,000 websites integrate with Facebook every day, thanks in no small part to the explosive growth of the Facebook Open Graph. Can you believe that Facebook’s “Like” button, now ubiquitous across the web, launched not even seven months ago?

Facebook has become so aggressive that Google has reacted with some big social moves of its own. It recently acquired Slide and Ångströ, reportedly for Google Me, the search giant’s rumored next attempt at competing with social networks. However, rumors are no longer focused on Google building a social network; many now believe the company is likely building more social features into all of its products.

Regardless of what exactly Google is building, it’s clear that Google is building something. And the reason they’re reacting so feverishly is because the world’s largest social network is increasing its control of the web. Google can’t afford for Facebook to control identity on the web, which is what prompted the change to the search giant’s terms of service in the first place.

Source:
Facebook vs Google

iPhone App Measures Your Happiness

Harvard researchers, using the iPhone to track people’s moods, have found a correlation between daydreaming and unhappiness.

The app, aptly named “Track Your Happiness,” contacts iPhone users at random times during the day to ask how they’re feeling and what they are doing while answering these questions. Users have the option to decide when and how often they’ll be notified.

The researchers’ findings, published in the journal Science, were based on samples from 2,250 adults. Out of those surveyed, 58.8% were male, and 73.9% of them reside in the U.S. The mean age of those involved in the survey was 34. As DISCOVER reports, responders said they were daydreaming 46.9% of the time when the iPhone rang to check in on their thoughts. And those who said they were daydreaming were more likely to reveal that they were feeling unhappy.

That said, Jonathan Schooler, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told The Boston Globe that the findings should not just be used to determine that a wandering mind is an unhappy one.

According to Schooler, mind-wandering is key for one’s problem solving abilities — and there is also evidence that it could be important for creativity.

iphone app measures your happines

Nielsen Admits Undercounting Web Traffic

Computer Glitch Caused System to Under Count Time Spent By 22%

by Michael Learmonth  Published: November 04, 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The Nielsen Co. disclosed today it has been undercounting traffic to websites -- for at least the last three months -- due to a flaw in its system that failed to recognize long internet addresses, underestimating "time spent" on the internet and especially social-media sites.

On line metrics can be a tricky subject, as this news proves. Nielsen is generally very reliabe in measuring off line data. Maybe on line metrics was yet a bridge too far? Accountability with unreliable metrics will be a problem. The reaction of Nielsen is very good. Admit the problem, adress the problem, solve it and keep communicating with the audience. This issue will be temporarely dominate the agenda, bu I suspect it will not ave a ling term influence on Nielsen business..

Nielsen admits undercounting web traffic

Socialisation of brands

From Universal mccan The New Wace report. Based om 40.000 respondents. Full of statistics showing the importance and phenomenal growth of social media. Interesting read.

Wave 5 the socialisation of brands - report

View more presentations from Thorsten Linz.

I-pad users spent 20% of their time with it in bed

According to a survey of NPD, a consumer and retail market research organisation, among I-pad users. 20 percent of users’ time with the iPad was spent with it in bed, only slightly less than the 25 percent of time consumers spent with their iPad in a stationary surface mode, it is obvious that the iPad form factor makes people "feel warm and cuddly".
The NPD ipad research results


Nicolas Carr blog commented "One has to wonder what other sorts of activities are being displaced by the nocturnal stroking of the iPad's highly responsive screen."
Touch me

Davies McDonalds Happy Meal Project

If you leave McDonalds Happy Meal on the table it remains unchanged for at least half a year.
See the pictures of 180 days and notice any changes.




What does it say about the food quality ?

McDonals Happy Meal Project

Spoofs Viral Old Spice by Sesame Street and Will it blend ?

Sesame Street’s spoof of Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” commercials has reached 2.6 million views in just five days.





Old Spice won an Emmy, doubled sales, and launched a film and TV career for its star with Wieden + Kennedy’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” marketing campaign. It was even imitated by Cisco, Conan and Elmo — but will it blend? This video has the answer



Original post http://mashable.com/2010/10/12/will-it-blend-old-spice-video/ 

The youtube original can be found here.Old spice original campaign

How android is transforming mobile computing

An article in newsweek paints an interesting picture about the rise of the Android platform mobile phone.

The business model behind it is interesting. If people use the android phone, google earns money from advertising. By making the android platform open source software, available to customize it by other manufacturers you will gain quick marketshare. The danger might be the fragmentation to many incompatible versions of the android operating system.

Huge market potential
By 2013 the mobile Internet ecosystem–money spent on access fees, online commerce, paid services, and advertising–will be worth more than half a trillion dollars per year, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker. As users keep downloading services and apps, every device sold generates an ongoing revenue stream


Desktop shift to mobile
The top companies in desktop computing–Apple, Google, and Microsoft–must shift their focus to mobile devices to remain competitive. But that pits them against traditional phone makers like Nokia and Research in Motion. Nokia, which has developed its own smart-phone software called Symbian, remains the industry gorilla. There are already 1.3 billion Nokia phones in use, and 200 million of them are smart phones. The huge customer base is a big advantage, according to Tero Ojanpera, an executive vice president at Nokia. By collecting location information from mobile phones, for example, Nokia can make traffic predictions.

Advantage android
But Google has a few advantages of its own. Instead of trying to modernize an older system originally created for voice-centric phones, Rubin and his engineers started with a clean slate, developing a modern mobile operating system for a new kind of device–a small computer that happens to make phone calls. Unlike older operating systems, Android was created to be good at rendering Web pages and to run many applications at the same time.

Business model Indirect revenue stream
Google also counts the very nature of Android as a strength. The company does not make money from Android directly. It gives the software away to hardware partners. Google reckons that Android gets more people onto the Internet, where Google can show them ads. Google CEO Eric Schmidt says Android-based phones already generate enough new advertising revenue to cover the cost of the software’s development. Google could make money in other ways too, for example, by opening an online store to sell music and videos to Android users. Schmidt envisions a day when there are 1 billion Android phones in the world and notes that if Google could get just $10 from each user per year, it would be a $10 billion business. That’s real money even for Google, whose revenues this year will be $21 billion.

Offer full customisation options to gain rapid market share
In addition to making Android available for free, Google also lets phone makers change the code and customize it so that an Android phone made by, say, Samsung has a different user interface than an Android phone from Motorola. Rubin believes this open-source model gives Google an advantage over rivals selling closed systems, like Apple, which also operates its own online stores. Apple’s tight control enables it to deliver an exceptionally smooth user experience, where everything works seamlessly together.


Read the original article at:
how android is transforming mobile computing

Engaging readers in the digital age

An interesting presentation about the strategic challenges internet poses for publishers. Authors can now build up their own audience and  publish without publishers. With all the possiblities in the social media publishers run the risk of becoming obsolete in the book publishing proces. Some interesting solutions from goingsocialnow at a keynote presentation at digital book world.

Engaging Readers in the Digital Age

View more presentations from Digital Book World.

engaging-readers-in-the-digital-age?

Destination: Green Tourism

Destination: Green Tourism

A forward global strategic outlook into the need for green tourism.

In an era of environmental consciousness, every locale that wants to remain attractive and competitive needs a strategy for sustainability.Feeling the push from tourists, leading tour operators such as TUI and Thomas Cook Group are giving marketing and booking preference to environmentally sustainable destinations and demanding higher green standards from hotels and resorts. In addition, major global travel societies such as National Geographic now use environmental sustainability as a key criterion in their destination rankings. In short, if tourist destinations are to stay competitive, they will need to adopt sustainable policies or risk alienating an important and growing customer base.

A good dutch example who has won the Eden award for most sustainable tourism destination in the Netherlands. But it is still relatively unknown as a tourist destination to most people.

http://www.hetwaterreijk.nl/











Near this nature reserve is the more famous Giethoorn "Venice of the North".

Business model

I just recently came across the business model from Alexander Osterwalder.

It uses 9 building blocks to structuring rethinking your organisation.

A very interesting slideshare presentation shows how they are connected and what you can do  to rethink your business to create value for your customers by innovating your business model.
Food for strategic thought.

Business Model Innovation Matters

View more presentations from Alexander Osterwalder.

For further reading, which I plan to do later,  there is a Book: Business Model Generation by Alex Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur.

As the website explains. " Disruptive new business models are emblematic of our generation. Yet they remain poorly understood, even as they transform competitive landscapes across industries. Business Model Generation offers powerful, simple, tested tools for understanding, designing, reworking, and implementing business models. Business Model Generation is a practical, inspiring handbook for anyone striving on business model design and innovation. In this unique project we based the book itself on an innovative business model. "


Website of the book businessmodelgeneration

The social technographics ladder

You used to have the 1-9-90 rule. 1 person creates someting new, 9 persons comment on it , and 90 persons watch what is happening. A more targeted approach to behaviour on social media is the social technographics ladder introduced by Forrester.  The story behind this is pretty clear. The initial wave of consumers using social technologies has halted. Companies will now need to devise strategies to extend social applications past the early adopters. This means that you need to understand how your consumers use social media. Do you know the Social Technographics Profiles of your customers?





Read more information at the interesting blog of Forrester.
Latest_global_social_media_trends_may_surprise_you

2010 year of the Lip Dub ?

2010 is going to be the year of the University lip dubs. They could be used as marketing tools to attract new students or confirm current students that they have chosen the best university. Because the number of views is visible, you could make it competitive. Who can make the best university lib dub in terms of number of views.

According to Wikipedia a lip dub is

A lip dub is a type of video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing to make a music video. It is made by filming individuals or a group of people lip synching while listening to a song or any recorded audio then dubbing over it in post editing with the original audio of the song. There is often some form of mobile audio device used such as an iPod. Often, they look like simple music videos, although many involve a lot of preparation and are well produced. The most popular lip dubs are done in a single unedited shot that often travels through different rooms and situations in, say, an office building. They have become popular with the advent of mass participatory video content sites like YouTube. Tom Johnson, a technical writer who blogs about Web 2.0's effect on communication, describes a good lip dub as having the characteristics, or at least the appearance, of:[1]

• spontaneity: "It appears as if someone thought up the idea on the spot, pulled out their personal video camera, and said hey everyone, let’s all lip sync this Flagpole Sitta song."
• authenticity: The people, production and situation appear real.
• participation: "The video doesn’t consist of one person’s spectacular lip sync, but that of a group, all participating together in this one spontaneous effort, which seems to communicate the attitude and mood of the song."
• fun: the people in the video are having a lot of fun.
• Just a few clicks on the internet



Some nice examples of university lip dubs



Boston University LipDub 2009 329.933 views on youtube





  Hochschule Furtwangen University 233.911 views on youtube



HEC Slow motion lipdub from Augustin de Belloy on Vimeo.


There even is a website which has collected 54 different international University lip dubs
University lip dub collection




And of course Windesheim has a lip dub as well. Performed by a student union in the evening in our new X building.

Best global brands 2010

The new Interbrand top 100 best global brands has been published.
Always nice to know how the big global brands are doing.

http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/Best-Global-Brands-2010.aspx

Interbrand Report 2010

Interbrand poster top 100

Facebook: The So Coal Network - A timely story about Mark Zuckerberg

A nice example of cause marketing campaign Cool IT using a viral to get the message of using dirty coal for data centres accross to the public. Excellently well executed. Make the concept simple as seen through the eyes of a child.  We will definitely hear more from this campaign.





http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20015522-54.html
Facebook reacts to Greenpeace anticoal campaign

Greenpeace has launched an effort to pressure Facebook to stop polluting with coal, but Facebook counters by saying its newest data center will be a model energy efficiency.

On Wednesday, Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo sent a letter sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to take steps to lighten Facebook's environmental footprint.

Naidoo said that the environmental watchdog group was dismayed by Facebook's plans to build a large data center in Prineville, Oregon. Due to Facebook's rapid growth, that facility will be twice as large as first anticipated and the local utility runs an "electricity mix that is disproportionately powered by coal, the largest source of global warming pollution," Naidoo wrote.

Since February, meanwhile, Greenpeace has been running an "Unfriend Coal" protest on Facebook that has gathered more than 500,000 people. Backed by its supporters, Greenpeace wants Facebook to commit to phasing out coal-powered electricity, lobby for climate change and clean energy policies, and disclose its greenhouse gas emissions inventory.

On Thursday, Facebook's director of policy communications, Barry Schnitt, responded, saying that Facebook's planned Oregon facility was chosen with energy efficiency in mind. Also, he noted that Facebook, like any other company, doesn't have control over the fuel source for its electricity.


It's true that the local utility gets 58 percent of its power from coal, compared to a national average of about 50 percent, Schnitt said. But the location was chosen because of its temperate climate, which allows Facebook to use more efficient evaporative coolers rather than the traditional power-hungry mechanical chillers.

Also, by consolidating into a single location, rather than leasing space at various locations, Facebook can design for efficiency. He said that the Oregon facility will have a Power Usage Effectiveness rating of 1.15, far below the industry averages for efficiency. Google, considered an industry leader, was about 1.17 in the past quarter.

"We strongly believe that the best way to minimize our impact is to concentrate on efficiency and building servers that work towards that goal," Schnitt wrote.

The director of Greenpeace's Cool IT program then responded to Schnitt, arguing that Facebook and other Internet providers need to take a more active stance on energy policy.

"Efficiency is certainly important, but is only the beginning of taking responsibility for your rapidly growing energy and environmental footprint," wrote policy analyst Gary Cook.

The back-and-forth, done publicly to maximize exposure of the anticoal campaign, sheds some light on the reality of procuring huge amounts of electricity to run data centers.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others are investing billions of dollars to build out data centers to meet growing demand for Web services, adding to the pollution from computing.

Given that energy is a cost, these Web providers have a financial motivation to use as little electricity as possible. That, and growing environmental concerns, has led to designs that optimize cooling, which is about half the energy used in data centers.







Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20015522-54.html#ixzz0zt8GPAu3

What Social Media Means for Beauty Brands




http://eurorscgsocial.com/2010/06/30/what-social-media-means-for-beauty-brands/

 








What Social Media Means for Beauty Brands

Stacy Mackler June 30th, 2010
Social media isn’t just a way for friends to stay in touch—smart PR professionals and marketers know that SoMe can be the answer to their prayers. Though beauty is the rare—and lucky—industry that may have bucked the trend of dwindling budgets (because women want to look good no matter how much the economy is suffering!), it still benefits resourceful pros to understand how employing social media in their strategies can have a great impact with a small budget.


We at Euro RSCG Worldwide PR engage in social media everyday—for our company and for our clients. We know that the Web is not just important, it’s essential to reach consumers in today’s fully connected world. We embrace the opportunity to link up with people on such a micro-level; anyone can follow any (or all) of us at ERWW PR on Twitter, either at the company level (@ERWWPR) or at the personal level; each of us at the agency is a citizen of Twitterville.

Beauty brands may have the most to gain from engaging in social media marketing in all its forms. In the real world, beauty products have long been at the center of social gatherings—BFFs help each other decide the right shade of eye shadow, mothers tell daughters which lipstick color looks best (and vice versa!), sisters help each other do their hair just so…and the list goes on. So when a beauty brand is able to tap into the strength of online bonds, it’s really hit the SoMe jackpot.




http://www.youtube.com/user/juicystar07


Girls (and women) can be intimidated by the prospect of seeking out advice and how-to tips in person. Mainstream fashion and beauty media outlets are already aware of the demand for these services; the clever marketer or PR pro will figure out a way to supply this need via social media. How-tos online in the privacy of one’s home, behind closed doors or with a trusted pal, can be just as good as that magazine page…or even better, since it has the benefit of being multidimensional (in other words, the real deal).


If you look at the places where social media stars and the championing of brands have intersected, you’ll often find beauty products to be the subject. Look at YouTube sensation Blair Fowler, known as Juicystar07: The 16-year-old shares her fashion and beauty expertise (and her shopping “hauls”) with 330,000 subscribers. Her YouTube channel has been viewed almost 18 million times, and she has appeared on “Good Morning America.” Her older sister, Elle (now 21), has another ultrapopular channel, allthatglitters21.

These girls have scored by leveraging the power of social media; but what PR and marketing professionals need to realize is that their brands have scored, as well. The number of YouTube videos of unwitting teen brand ambassadors is astounding—they plug products with on-brand messaging that could make a PR maven weep with joy. They’re using their 15 minutes of fame to advertise their favorite merch, and the marketers who tease out the special sauce of really leveraging these unpaid brand ambassadors may actually revolutionize social media marketing.

Have there been companies that have done it well already? Procter & Gamble may be the closest to really getting it right. Its site and newsletter Vocalpoint engages women not just with free samples (which are always nice!) but also with a forum for women to talk to each other in a nonthreatening, inviting community. Many of P&G’s brands are big players in the social media space. Among them are Olay, which has an active social media presence, and has been able to broaden its user base and demo in recent years; Pantene, which recently became one of the first brands to launch a community manager (the Pantene Beauty Maven); Cover Girl and Herbal Essences.

There hasn’t been one knockout win yet in the beauty arena—but it will happen. The question at this point isn’t “Why not?” The question is “When?”



http://www.glitzy-glam.com/store/



Infectious personalities

Marketing uses the "connnectors" in a network to promote a new product.  Health authorities could use the connectors in a network to get an early warning signal of a disease outbreak. The spreading of a disease and the spreading of a new product through a network are remarkabely similar.





Social networks catch an early glimpse of disease outbreaks



Who will sneeze first?

CHANCES are your friends are more popular than you are. It is a basic feature of social networks that has been known about for some time. Consider both an avid cocktail party hostess with hundreds of acquaintances and a grumpy misanthrope, who may have one or two friends. Statistically speaking, the average person is much more likely to know the hostess simply because she has so many more friends. This, in essence, is what is called the “friendship paradox”: the friends of any random individual are likely to be more central to the social web than the individual himself.

Now researchers think this seemingly depressing fact can be made to work as an early warning system to detect outbreaks of contagious diseases. By studying the friends of a randomly selected group of individuals, epidemiologists can isolate those people who are more connected to one another and are therefore more likely to catch diseases like the flu early. This could allow health authorities to spot outbreaks weeks in advance of current surveillance methods.

In a report just posted on arXiv, an online repository of research papers, and which has been submitted to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nicholas Christakis from Harvard University and James Fowler from the University of California, San Diego put the friendship paradox to good use. In a trial carried out last autumn, they monitored the spread of both seasonal flu and H1N1, popularly known as swine flu, through students and their friends at Harvard University.

Dr Christakis and Dr Fowler selected a random group of 319 undergraduates and asked each to nominate up to three friends. Using these names, they collected another group of 425 friends. As the friend paradox predicts, the second group were both more popular (named more times by the random group) and more central to the connections among Harvard students. Flu infections were monitored from September 1st 2009 to the end of December by identifying those diagnosed by the university’s health services and by e-mail responses to a twice-weekly health survey. Overall, 8% of the students were formally diagnosed with the flu and 32% were self-diagnosed. But the infection rate peaked two weeks earlier among the group of more-connected friends. Their social links were indeed causing them to get infected sooner.


Early warning
As this result came with the benefit of hindsight, the researchers tried to come up with a real-time measure that could potentially provide an early warning sign of an outbreak as it began to spread. To do this they went back to the beginning and compared diagnoses between the two groups on a daily basis for each of the 122 days of the study. A significant difference between the two groups was first detectable a full 46 days before visits to health services peaked for the random group. For those with self-reported symptoms, there was a noticeable difference 83 days before the peak in self-reported symptoms.

These early results are impressive. Currently, the methods used to assess an infection by America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention lag an outbreak by a week or two. Google’s Flu Trends, which monitors millions of queries submitted to the giant search engine for the occurrence of flu-related keywords, is at best contemporaneous with an outbreak. Dr Christakis and Dr Fowler suggest that a hybrid method might be developed in which the search queries of a group of highly connected (ie, popular) individuals could be scanned for signs of the flu.

Although the technique has so far only been demonstrated for the flu and in the social milieu of a university, the researchers nevertheless think that it could help predict other infectious diseases and do so on a larger scale, such as in cities and across regions. Nor should it be difficult to implement. Public-health officials already conduct random sampling, so getting the participants to name a few friends too should not be onerous. When it comes to infectious diseases, your friends really do say a lot about you.



http://mobile.economist.com/science_16103882.php

Country of origin effect

If you are producing high quality products in China you will have a hard time beating the low cost low quality perception. This strong negative "country of origin" effect is shown in a research by Interbrand consultancy.

Chinese companies must improve their quality and brand image to gain a competitive edge in the global arena, according to a recent survey by London-based Interbrand Consultancy. The “Made-in-China” survey interviewed over 700 business professionals on their perceptions about products made in China and the potential for Chinese brands going overseas. The survey revealed that Chinese brands were unable to cash in on the Olympics goodwill largely due to the tainted milk powder scandal. “Products made in China continue to represent the image of cheap price but low quality with safety problems,” the survey said.

http://nation-branding.info/2009/01/14/made-in-china/

A Great Bargain or a Big Rip-off? Consumers' Perceptions of Price Fairness in the U.S. and China

How cultural differences affect consumer price fairness perceptions. An  interesting research article shows the differences in perception of price fairness between the US and China. The findings are in line with the Hofstede theory on cultural dimensions. China is a relationship oriented collective society where as the US is a society which scores high on the individuality dimension.

Researchers found that American consumers in general tended to see things as fair if they got the bargain and unfair if they didn't, regardless of whether the shopper they were being compared to was a friend or a stranger. Chinese consumers, on the other hand, cared more about how they stacked up against their friends. "The Chinese were less affected by what a stranger paid than what a friend paid, whereas Americans were uniformly sensitive to price discrimination,' the researchers report.


They also explored whether customers' relationship with the seller -- first-time buyer versus loyal customer -- affected their feelings of fairness in the price they paid. For American consumers, it did not seem to matter much whether they were a first-time or loyal customer: It was fair if they got a lower price and unfair if they paid more regardless of their relationship with the seller. Chinese consumers, on the other hand, tended to be more bothered if they paid a higher price as a loyal customer. Chinese consumers "were more sensitive...to the nature of the vendor-customer relationship."

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1906

How to change a good advert into a bad one with 10 rules

The proces by which a good advertising changes into a bad one.
Simply apply all the rules of good advertising without bearing in mind the effect on the impression on the viewer. During the proces you lose sight of the origial big idea to visualize the intended positioning.

An outdated example, but this kind of advertising is still widespread.

Top ten reasons why BP’s advertising is a disaster

An interesting article by Simon Mainwaring on corporate reputation.


Credit: AP

BP’s handling of the Deepwater Horizon disaster demonstrates a lack of understanding as to how technology has changed the consumer marketplace. Their PR efforts have effectively pitted traditional media (such as TV and newspaper ads) against social media (such as the Boycott BP page on Facebook that has received close to a million ‘Likes’ or the BP logo competition run by Greenpeace). Not only does this mean that their ad spend on traditional media is largely ineffectual, but it allows the negative conversations around their brand to continue unresolved.

If a brand wants to influence consumer opinion within this social ecosystem it must play by a set of rules seemingly foreign to BP – transparency, authenticity and accountability. Social networks allow people to bypass traditional media outlets, talk among themselves and come together around shared values. Ecological damage on such a historic scale tapped into our shared concern for the ocean, its marine life, and the planet we leave for our children, and so social media amplified consumer outrage around the world.
...... 

......
A full page newspaper ad (or ten) does not disperse the damage done to the lives of fishermen and their surrounding communities devastated by the spill who are now struggling under the weight of consumer concerns over their catches. A TV ad (or ten) does not restore the generations of marine life lost, nor repair the damage done to the Gulf’s ecosystem. A search ad (or ten) does not change the mind of a single consumer unless BP fundamentally changes its behavior.

Read more at http://simonmainwaring.com/future/top-ten-reasons-why-bps-advertising-is-a-disaster/

To Whisper Neuromarketing- Presentación Daniel Razniewski

A thorough presentation from LAB an international biometric advertising research company. Based on the assumption that the uncounscious can be scientifically explored. Central is the question how to relate Neuro research results to conventional marketing measures. Based on some real life cases showing some interesting results

ToWhisper Neuromarketing- Presentación Daniel Razniewski

View more presentations from To Whisper.

The invisible gorilla

Before reading any further do the test




The Invisible Gorilla provides an interesting counterpoint to Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. While Gladwell sought to show that our minds can perform remarkable feats of judgment, often without conscious processing, Chabris and Simons show us how many ways our human brains can fail. If that sounds depressing, it’s not really. The Invisible Gorilla seeks to expose some of the limitations of our brains in areas like observation and memory; with this understanding, we can adopt strategies to compensate for them.


Read more at http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/the-invisible-gorilla.htm

Blue ocean strategy Mobile Phone with 3 weeks standby time

A nice example of a blue ocean strategy. Who would have thought there would be room on the overcrowded mobile telephone market for yet another mobile phone? Back to basics. John’s Phone claims to be the most simple (to operate) mobile phone. No frills. Simlock free, big buttons, old fashioned adress booka pencil. Claiming 3 weeks standby time. Worldwide coverage, A waterresistant dumbphone. Target groups young, old, holidaygoers, grandpa, grandma sportsmen and women, national and international businesses. The Dutch design company apparently found some quality Chinese producers who were willing to take their  phone into production.



Available in 6 colors white, brown, pink, black and green.
The official website John's phones Sells via the internet at http://www.johnsphones.com/store/item9




See Dutch review http://www.bright.nl/eerste-indruk-johns-phone

Time will tell if there is a big enough market for a basic mobile phone version. Looking forward to first user experiences if this basic phone does what it promises.

How Steve Jobs turns consumers into fanatics

In neuromarketing terms, our brains are hardwired to WANT to be in one or more groups. Brands that can be positioned to put their customers into a group will find that their efforts will be enhanced by their customers’ own need to belong. In addition, they will likely cultivate a dislike for other brand groups.

How Steve Jobs turns consumers into fanatics

How Apple turns consumers into fanatics

R.I.P. Twitter as a marketing platform.

Twitter is ineffective a a marketing tool, argues the author. He shows some interesting statistics to prove it.
According to the author Dan Schawbel an email subscriber is worth five times as much as a blog subscriber and ten times as much as a Twitter follower. Taking all things into account, he would rather have 5,000 email contacts than 100,000 Twitter followers.


Personal branding not using twitter

International branding. A global or local marketing campaign ?

One of the important questions in an increasing globalizing world. "Should a globally sold  product have a global marketing campaign or does it have to be localized ?"

A nice example of a localised bollywood style XBOX360 Indian TV commercial featuring Akshay Kumar & Yuvraj singh.

Enjoy the ride.

xbox360 bollywood style

How do consumers engage with brands in an increasingly digital world?

How do consumers engage with brands in an increasingly digital world?

This marks a significant shift in focus for the research of Razorfish. Their past studies have been almost exclusively concerned with charting how consumer behavior adapts to advances in Internet technology and web services.

In this report Razorfish is broadening their attention toward exploring how consumers interact with brands online.

What does the future hold for brands when everything is just a click away? If consumers really are in control, what can we learn from their interaction with brands today?

Highly recommended

Razorfish report on consumers and building digital brands

Building brands online

With all the (campaign) metrics available brand marketeers maintain preference for traditional brand impact metrics. An interesting presentation clearly explaining different metrics.

Building Brands Online: An Interactive Advertising Action Plan

Positioning luxury car brands

A nice example powerpoint on positioning 4 luxury car brands from down under.


Positioning luxury car brands (Bmw, Mercedes Audi, Lexus )

Social Media Guide lines

An interesting example of social media guide lines. Razorfish Social Media guidelines

A students video view on Windesheim University of applied sciences in Zwolle

One of the corporate communication project assignments of the Windesheim minor International Business Studies. A short video (youtube quality) on Windesheim University of applied sciences in Zwolle as seen through the eyes of our students.

Classic Old Spice Social Media Campaign

Well here it is. The Old Spice Social Campaign Case Study from WK. To save the judges some time this year, I’d suggest sending the pencils, lions, grand pix’ and the like straight to the WK head office in an overnight express bag, no need for a tracking code, everyone know’s who those awards will belong to! Check out the video above, the results are just as you’d expect.

The Old Spice Case Study talks us through the insight around targeting men & women at the same time to generate conversation around body wash. When it was launched online for the super bowl weekend (and TV shortly after) the campaign managed to capture 75% of all conversations in the category (although I’m sure that was off a small base) before every man and his dog was talking about the Old Spice ads.

To continue that success Old Spice & WK needed to take the campaign to the next level, Mustafa was now a household hero, and they wanted to engage the fans directly. And so the response campaign was born.

Over 3 days, a team of creatives, digital strategists, developers and producers filmed 180 odd videos around the clock, creating videos and responding directly to fans and celebrities in near real time to create what is now known as the best social campaign ever to have been created.

So here are a few of the stats… hold your breath…

• ◦On day 1 the campaign received almost 6 million views 
• (that’s more than Obama’s victory speech)
• ◦On day 2 old spice had 8 of the 11 most popular videos online
• ◦On day 3 the campaign had reached over 20 million views
• ◦After the first week old spice had over 40 million views
• ◦The old spice twitter following increased 2700% (probably off a lowish base)
• ◦Facebook fan interaction was up 800%
• ◦Oldspice.com website traffic was up 300%
• ◦The old spice YouTube channel became the all time most viewed channel (amazing)
• ◦Thecampain has generated 1.4 billion impressions since launching the ads 6 months ago
• ◦The campaign increased sales by 27% over 6 months since launching (year on year)
• ◦In the last 3 months sales were up 55%
• ◦And in the last month sales were up 107% from the social responses campaign work
• ◦Old spice is now the #1 body wash brand for men.

I don’t think I need to add much more to that. I just really want to see what old spice has in store for us next, in fact i’m itching for it. (no pressure WK!) (via Creativity Online)

From
http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/old-spice-social-campaign-case-study-video/

Watch the case story on Youtube